What would happen at home?

In my last post; you will recall the counselor told ROB that she was 99.9% sure that if an assessment were to be done, that it would come back and show that he was an alcoholic.  99.9% sure…WOW!!! That’s pretty definite and for someone to say something like that must be a sign that finally someone saw what I was seeing, but the bigger question was, what was ROB gonna do about it if anything.  WHAT WOULD HAPPEN AT HOME?

The drive home that day seemed like a drive that was never gonna end and all I kept hearing was 99.9% sure, 99.9% sure, 99.9% sure.  Over and over and over.  My drive time home was only about 15 minutes, but it seemed like a lifetime that day.  Then I started thinking, WHAT WOULD HAPPEN AT HOME, would ROB take out his anger on me, would ROB go drinking, even come home or what?  Should I call him and see? What would I say, how would I start a conversation with him?  Should I call my parents and talk with them or better yet, call ROB’s mom and see what she thought.  NO, came back very loud in my mind, I can’t call ROB’s mom.  She didn’t even want to help me before I had a medical opinion, what makes me think she would want to help me now.  If there was one thing I had learned since being married to ROB and dealing with his family, they never dealt with issues but turned the other cheek and just hoped the issue or problem would go away.  Well, that’s not how my family was.  In my family, we talk about everything and lean on each other when times get tough.  Boy was I in a bigger predicament than I could have ever imagined.

I remember pulling into the garage and just sitting in my car for about anther 30 minutes.  Once I made it into the house, I went and sat on our deck that overlooked a golf course.  Oh yes, our home was nice.  ROB always tried to impress people with things he couldn’t afford and his biggest lies were the ones he told himself.  Lies about our financial situation, lies about how perfect our marriage was, lies about me, lies about his personal life and the demons that haunted him.  If there was one thing I knew, was that I could not change a person or help them unless they wanted help.  Most importantly, I needed to help myself now.  What did I need?  That was something I needed to figure out.  I had started to lose so much of myself in this marriage and started to become someone I didn’t even recognize.  Oh sure, I could put on a happy face in front of our family & friends, but once I crossed over that doorway into our home, I became a depressed person.  I remember not even wanting to get out of bed most days.  Now, WHAT WOULD HAPPEN AT HOME?

ROB came home that night and started in on me.  He claimed he didn’t know how, but that I had gotten to the counselor and made her say those things and that he was not an alcoholic, he was not now or EVER going back to another counseling session and that he would fix what ever needed to be fixed on his own.  ON HIS OWN…that was the last thing that was said about it that night as I remember getting up from the couch, going to our bedroom, closing the door and crying myself to sleep.

One thing ROB never knew, I had a two pictures of us in my night stand and almost every night I would pray to GOD for him to give me the strength to get through this and to give me double the strength to make it through another day to finding the person that I first had fallen in love with.  Would that person ever be able to come back to me?  Did that person even exist anymore.

The next morning, ROB got up, got ready to go to work and came to my bedside, gave me kiss and off he went.  Little did he know what I had planned for my day.  With what little energy I had, I got out of bed and went to my office.  I decided I need to make a call to ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, I wasn’t sure where they were, how I would explain my situation, use our real names or how all this worked.  So I decided to GOOGLE it. WWW.GOOGLE.COM then to ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, there it was….WWW.AA.ORG.  I think I just sat staring at that computer screen for the next 30 minutes.  Then I did it, I made the call.

How could I have possibly known WHAT WOULD HAPPEN AT HOME, next.

If you are dealing with someone who you think maybe or is an alcoholic, please contact ALCOHOLIC ANONYMOUS and get help.  You can access their website at www.aa.org to find out more information.

 

Look for my next entry as we come closer and closer to the conclusion to this marriage!

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A day to remember…

If you remember, the last we spoke, ROB and I had just gotten engaged.  It was November 2002 and we set the wedding date for July 26, 2003, lots to do with little time.  Since ROB had been married once before, he wanted me to have the wedding on my dreams and pretty much let me make the plans.  I started, photographer…check; cake…check; dress…check; menu…check and so one.  Then it came time to the reception spot.  Right across from the church we were going to be married at was a Holiday Inn.  How perfect, easy to commute to, people can stay and from what I had heard, they did a really nice job with weddings.  So one night, ROB and I went over.  We walked the hotel, had dinner, sat in the bar and even sat out on one of the balconies and just watched the people strolling by and talking.  His comment was, “I THINK THIS IS IT! IT LOOKS & FEELS LIKE US AND THERE’S A COUPLE BARS CLOSE BY!”  Right there should have been a huge clue!  Did I take the warning? NOPE, I just thought it was a comment in passing.  So we booked it! My parents were paying for the wedding so that SURELY didn’t bother ROB one bit…as a matter of fact, he never even asked how much it was going to cost.

The big day came.  It was 95 in Minnesota, the church didn’t have air and I had on a long sleeve dress with a full train.   I thought I was going to die!  But it was great.  I remember my dad being a little jittery, but hey, I’m his baby girl and from what I have heard, that’s just how dad’s act when this big day comes.  We went on to the reception and all was fine.  We danced, Rob drank, we toasted, Rob drank, we had the dollar dance, ROB drank.  I think you see the theme here.  The end of the night finally came and we went up to our suite.  The bridesmaids had sent up food & champagne so that we could relax.  I just remember wanting to take a shower and get out of that dress.  All ROB could think about was opening those damn cards to see how much money was in them.  Fine, let’s do this so I can get in the shower.

Four months into our marriage, Thanksgiving was coming.  I told both families that I wanted to host since this was our first holiday together.  I loved to entertain and put my skills to work.  Two days before the big day, I had all the fixings ready to go.  Since I had started a job where I was an independent contractor, I was able to work from home and make sure that everything was perfect.  I set the table, cleaned the home and made sure everything was perfect.  Not once did ROB acknowledge all the prework I had already done.  The night before Thanksgiving, ROB called me and said that he was going to stop at the bar on his way home.  It wasn’t going to be late as he was only going to have one and then be on his way home.  I was shocked when he asked if there was anything he needed from the grocery store on his way home.  I told him as a matter of fact there was about 4 things but I needed to know for sure that he would get them.  He promised me, told me he loved and I would see him soon.

It was 11 o’clock when I finally went to bed and ROB had still not come home.  Since I had to be up at 5 am to get the turkey going, I thought it in my best interest to get some sleep.  At 1:15am my phone rang.  Groggy as I was, I answered the phone and almost go sick to my stomach thinking something had happened to ROB! Oh yeah, something had happened all right, he had gotten completely wasted and the bouncers had told him that if they saw him leave the bar & drive, they would call the police.  ROB’s sister thought it in ROB’s best interest to call me to come and get him.  I told her to put him in a cab, I would wait for him to come home and pay the cab driver when they arrived.  She said that he was very agitated and I better come now to get him.  I had a 20 minute drive to get there.  I crawled out of bed, still in my jammies, I put on my coat, got into my Mercedes he had gotten me and off I went.  It was a cold snowy night, but I dredged forward.  When I got to the bar, I pulled up front called ROB’s phone and told him I was out front and he had 2 minutes to get in the car.  To my surprise, ROB hung up on me….OH REALLY, I thought!!!!!  With smoke coming out of my ears, I stormed into that bar; walked right up to ROB and told him to get his ass in the car immediately.  His jaw fell on the floor and he told me to get the fuck out of the bar.

I went out to the car and ROB followed behind me.  Once we got onto the freeway, ROB started in…who the hell did I think I was to embarrass him like that in HIS bar?  I was the biggest bitch he had ever met and what a cunt I had turned out to be. He had had it.  We were going to do this Thanksgiving thing and the very next day, he was going to contact and attorney and divorce my ass.

I drove in shock the rest of the way home with tears streaming down my face.  How could this have happened to me?  All I had ever done was love this man and put up with some of his other faults…how could he say this to me?  I remember sitting up the rest of that night; crying and trying to figure out what to do.  Oh I figured it out.  I was going to go forward with this Thanksgiving dinner, but I was the one that was going to make the toast and what a toast it would be.

See how that toast goes in the next entry of Moving onto Happiness…A Minnesota Girls Divorce Story!